


Paths Untaken

by TalesOfOnyxBats



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Lost - Freeform, Romance, Sokkla Saturday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfOnyxBats/pseuds/TalesOfOnyxBats
Summary: Sokkla Saturdays 3: Lost In The Forest And FeelingsSummary: Azula is lost in a forest that shows her visions of what could have been.
Relationships: Azula/Sokka (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	Paths Untaken

She isn't sure when she had become so sensitive, she thinks that it might be the forest. It is doing things to her and to her mind. Things that she resents but she can't find her way out of it. She isn't exactly sure for how long she has been wandering but her feet hurt and her back aches.

She knows that she is on her last fragments of energy and is no closer to finding where the treeline ends and civilization starts. She is so tired. So tired and no longer able to see the point in trekking onwards. Really what does she have to go back to? There isn't anything left for her at all.

Azula staggers forward just a few more steps before dropping to her hands and knees and letting out a frustration and helpless scream. Maybe someone will hear her. Maybe someone will come for her.

If they don't, she has nothing left to fight for, she will let herself wither away into nothing. She is already nothing. Nothing but raw emotion, the same emotion that she has fought so hard to suppress.

She bunches her shaking body up and lets the tears come because, really, what does it matter? No one is around. No one is ever around when she breaks. When she needs someone.

**.oOo.**

The forest still shows her things.

Taunts her with visions.

Visions of how things could be.

She wishes that it would just torment her with the visions of the past. With things that she can't go back and undo. Instead it shows her how her life could have unfolded if she was a better person. If she had a loving father or if she hadn't been too unlovable for her mother.

In the rays of sunlight that cut through the canopy she sees a laughing child being hoisted into her mother's arms and twirled around and a giggling brother waiting for his turn. The leaves will shift and so does the image. She sees herself as she'd been some months ago-perhaps a year now-but she is wandering with her brother and her uncle, banished but somehow content. They have each other.

And in the holes in the barks of the most ancient trees she sees different futures. Futures where she'd let Zuko go at the Boiling Rock. Mai doesn't leave her then. She isn't alone when she slips and Mai and TyLee take her through it.

Futures where she is happy and loved.

Futures that she can't have.

Today she sees it in a pond. The version of her that appears on the surface still has tired eyes and a pallor to her skin. But those tired eyes have a lively spark and her hand is interwoven with the hand of another. And the other's free hand brushes shorter locks away from her face.

It takes her a moment to recognize the man that is carasessing the her in the water. He is a bit scruffier and much more muscular. But it is definitely him. It is definitely Sokka. He leans in and kisses her. She hears it in the rustling of the leaves, "I love you, Azula."

She cups her hands over her ears and scrambles away from the pond.

But she can't flee from the image, it is all around. It unfolds day by day and with such persistence that it doesn't wait for sunrays, tree holes, or ponds. It simply plays out before her like the hallucinations she is accustomed to. And maybe that's what this is; her mind unraveling to a deeper degree.

Whatever it is, she sees herself laying on the grass next to him. He looms over her, tucks a firelily behind her ear, and kisses her nose. He tells her that she is beautiful and that she is the most clever woman that he has had the pleasure of meeting. She reaches up and cups his face. He offers her a peach.

Sleep doesn't drive the visions out either. They come to her in very vivid dreams. They spar and banter as they do it. He is teaching her to use a sword and she is trying to teach him to incorporate firebending forms into his swordsmanship. And then he backs off to watch her firebend. He is always smiling and always encouraging her.

She is better when he is around.

Even when she stumbles, she doesn't feel like a failure. Not when she can jest that he was a distraction. Not when his hand is held out to her. Not when he is offering to get some ice for her bruised knees.

She wakes up with her knees throbbing and a fresh sense of longing.

She is exhausted as she drags herself along. She can't remember the last time she has eaten. Her mind is on water for the time being, her thirst is more pressing. She has been putting off drinking for a while now, the pond is always the worst. She takes a deep breath and makes her way over to it.

She closes her eyes and cups her hands. They meet the water and she brings it to her lips. But closed eyes don't block the sound of his voice. The sound of her own, much lighter and happier. The sound of her own laugh as it mixes with his.

She balls her fists and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. She feels moisture on them before she realizes that she is crying again. She makes the mistake of opening her eyes and then she finds herself unable to tear them away from the reflection in the pond.

In it, her face looks some fuller and she thinks that it might be the pond's distortion. But she follows the length of her reflection's arm to where her hand rests cupped over Sokka's. His smile is so warm. Her own expression is warm. Warmer and softer and kinder to the point where she almost doesn't recognize it.

She doesn't recognize her.

Azula can't see this sort of life for herself, not at all. And yet it leaves her stomach fluttering with a deep yearning for something she never asked for. Something that never was and never will be.

She stares at the reflection on the pond until her eyes burn.

Stares at it until the image is imprinted in her mind waiting to surface in her dreams.

And it does. Sokka tells her, again, that he loves her as his hand caresses the swell of her pregnancy.

In waking she knows that, that isn't what she wants. She is no mother. She doesn't want to be one. But, Agni, does she wish that, that is what she wants. She slumps against the bark of the tree and asks the forest why it is tormenting her so.

She is dizzy with stress and hunger. She no longer has the willpower to do anything about it. She has made a decision; she will let herself wither away into nothing. After all, she is already nothing.

**.oOo.**

Things unfold in a daze, Azula is only dimly aware that she is on her way home. They give her drink and food and they lay her down and tuck her in. She is warm and comfortable for the first time in ages but she still feels sick to her stomach. Sick with nerves and the prospect of false hope.

She'd rather have no hope at all.

She wishes that the world wouldn't torment her like so.

Azula squeezes her eyes shut but she still feels his hand cupped over hers. She knows that it is not Zuko because his touch is warmer than the one she is feeling now. She knows that it is not Zuko's touch because she has felt this one so many times before.

"Are you real?" It is the first thing she has said in ages.

And that voice...it is so familiar. "Yeah, I'm real." He chuckles, "can a hallucination do this?" He gives his boomerang a light flick and a stack of books topples off of the nightstand. He rubs the back of his head, "whoops."

Azula gives a small and haughty sniff. "My hallucinations have more grace than that."

"Oh, Zuko is going to be so relieved!" Sokka exclaims.

"Why is that?" She refuses to turn around and face him.

"Well...the first thing that you said was something snarky and off-handed. That means that you're back to normal, right?"

Azula gives another sniff that is accompanied by a bitter laugh. "Normal? You think that this is normal? There's something wrong with me, Sokka…" she hisses his name. "There always has been." The forest had done a good job of reminding her of this.

"Yeah, you're pretty messed up." He agrees with a nonchalant hand gesture.

Her heart sinks and she isn't sure why. Did she really expect him to be as tender and loving with her as the illusion of him was. Does she even want that? She dismisses the thought that she does, but she can't cast it away completely. Can't cast away her disappointment when he adds, "that's normal for you."

"Being messed up?"

He nods.

She swallows, feeling tears prickling the back of her eyes. "I could have been different…" she mumbles, though she isn't sure why.

His brows furrow. "What do you mean?"

"Nevermind." She replies.

"Azula…"

"Just...just go get Zuko."

"Look, I was just joking...sort of." He rubs the back of his head again. "I mean you are messed up but so is Zuko. And so am I. I think that this whole war thing did a number on all of us."

"And somehow I'm still the only monster that it made."

Sokka flinches. "I don't think that that's true."

"Who else then?"

He squeezes her hand. "Believe it or not, I don't think that you're a monster. Monsters don't have the self-awareness to call themselves monsters."

She swallows again.

"Monsters don't cry."

Azula wipes at her eyes. "I'm not crying."

He laughs again. "If you say so."

Azula presses her head deeper into the pillow and focuses in on the steady rocking of the ship. Hopefully she will be home soon and she can put the visions behind her. Can start getting her life back to normal. She bites her lip, she isn't sure how she can manage such a thing.

Sokka's smile fades "Are you going to be okay?"

She shakes her head. She truly doesn't think so.

"Well I might try to help you if you ask nicely…"

"I can help myself."

"Well, it was worth a shot." He mutters to himself. To her, he says, "okay fine, I'll just do it then."

She gnaws on the inside of her cheek. He is supposed to shot at her, to tell her to stop being so stubborn. He is supposed to be angry.

"You'll let me help you, right?"

Her tummy flutters and she thinks of the visions in the trees and in the rays of the sun. Of the paths she didn't take and the smiles she never wore. In her mind she can see another vision created, another future that she didn't take…

She wonders if the forest would have shown her ill-fated futures too had she picked the right path.

She hopes that she never has to find out.

She rolls over to face him.

"Is that a yes?"

"Is it?" She returns the question.

He gives her a small nudge, "not everything has to be some big puzzle, some things are as simple as yes or no."

"Not this." She replies.

He quirks a brow. "Either you're going to let me help you or you aren't."

"It's not that simple."

He rolls his eyes. "That's fine, because I already know the answer."

"Do you?"

"I do." He holds his hand out and two futures are born. "Come on deck, the sunsets look really nice."

She can take it and let him lead her on deck or she can swat it away, creating just another vision in the tree trunks. She takes a deep breath and sits up. She stares at his hand for a moment. A very long moment. She doesn't know what she was thinking. She isn't sure that she was thinking at all.

His hand curls around hers and he fixes her with a soft and comforting smile. "I thought so."

He pushes the door to the cabin open and light spills over her face.


End file.
